touch me, take me to hell
by rizahawkeyed
Summary: It's is a bond through the eyes and knotted at the soul, but for the briefest of moments, hands, arms, skin can touch and change everything entirely. [Royai]


i. The first touch is only brief and it does not flicker like his eyes or sink in like her's. It is fleeting, barely noticeable, the touching of fingertips where the grain of paper ends and skin begins. A thin blanket of fabric hides her from the electricity of physical contact in the form of his glove and she does not notice it because it is hardly there, but still there is something to it that takes her breath far away.

ii. The second comes in a place that stirs with sand and grief. Thin, frayed ends of blonde hair flicker at her neck, nothing like the eruptions of flame that burst from his fingertips. He may be a monster now, she thinks, but she remembers that touch now and it sens a shiver down her spine. There is something akin to shattered glass in his eyes and this is not the boy that handed her a card, but when he places a consoling hand on her shoulder and tells her it will end soon, she doesn't bother to differentiate.

iii. The third is firm as stone. Her fingers fold under the hard, grief-stricken grasp of his own and she understands that promising to follow him into hell wasn't the simple utterance of words but the statement of a cold truth, because hell waits before the man who wishes to change the world and, inevitably, it waits before the girl foolish enough to follow a broken boy pretending to be a beast.

iv. The fourth, the fifth, the sixth, the many are a hand, a foot, the brushing of backs as she watches him with the ring of gunfire and the flash of flame. She is a wall between him and hell and between him and his own demons, though the latter is more difficult. With each, there is a rope tying between them and it thickens and pulls harder until she cannot breathe and all she can see are the gates of hell awaiting their atonement for the sins of monsters.

v. There is another touch when rain falls on a broken man's face and he watches his dream buried six feet in the ground. The crackling cries of a small child ring out and she hands him his hat and this time, when skin brushes against glove, the touch lingers because he needs it like oxygen. In a lost time with no one left to love, her warmth can prolong his flame only for so long before hate has to. Before hell has to.

vi. He struggles against her and looks over his shoulder over and over as though, without him the world will wither up and die. He is the cause, after all, and his absence leaves the world without a savior. But he can see as well as she can into the fiery face of a golden-haired boy who may be this world's true savior. He is not allowed to be weak and he tries so hard not to that, as she moves to help him into the car, he slumps against her in defeat. She knows her vows to follow him and she wants so badly to follow him into defeat. To be weak at his side. To be weak within him. But she is under orders to watch him, to be strong, so she hardens herself to metal and pushes him to his feet as his crutch and knows that there will be a day to be weak someday, and today is not that day.

vii. The next is loving and reprimanding and demanding and apologetic at once and it overwhelms her. With tears still stuck like sap to her reddened cheeks and sobs stuck in her throat, her hands search him and coat themselves in his sticky, red blood. He tells her never to give up again. To never be so damned foolish. She cannot hear him over her joy and her shame because he is alive but dying and she knows now that there is no life for her without him. Maybe he is her dream, but she doesn't have the patience to think it.

viii. There is a touch that puts a stake in her heart and sets her insides ablaze like it should have the first time, all the times after. But the difference is that there is no glove and her skin touches his skin. She is broken and he is worse and they attempt to fit the pieces together when his hand moves to her gun and he lowers it for her. She cannot kill him and even if she had, she would have turned the same gun on herself far more easily and followed him yet again. But his touch saves her this time, and she falls with him.

ix. It is pain and the world is dark and cold and each brush of air sends shudders down her spine. There is no breath, only blood bubbling in her throat, but she is proud of him and of them both. How far they've come to understand so much with so little. His arms encircle her and it hurts to be held so tight, but she would like to die like this. With his face buried in her hair, both begging her to live and pleading with fate to leave her be. She gives him a smile because there is no other comfort to be had when he is, again, the last one standing.

x. Fumbling and stumbling, he is her crutch where she is his eyes. There is no time for the triviality of skin or fabric and she does not take the time to linger on the way their contact does not end or pause or halt. They meld into one machine, one monster, and they complete that task they have become oh-so skilled at; the taking of life. To the left, to the right, more flames, his nods of approval are pained but even in the blankness of his eyes, she can see the determination he holds toward their cause. Not here, they will not die. There is another day to be seen and a world of happiness that she wanted and that he promised and her weakened hand clenches against his shoulder when she sees it just beyond the flames.


End file.
